I was listening to an oldies station the other day and ever since then off and on I've had the Bee Gees song "Gotta Get a Message to You" in my head. It's not a song I remember hearing before, and I'm NOT a huge Bee Gees fan, but in thinking about my next dramatic endeavor, it has helped me to hone the central character's motivation...
The puppet play for tonight's KidzLife was a transition piece. Having gotten Daniel out of the lion's den last week, we arrived at Daniel 7, the point at which Daniel's dreams and visions of the future take precedence over his life history. The book actually goes for five more chapters in this vein, but it all gets a bit complicated and needs to be read in context with other similar passages. Hence the idea of moving on to Revelation. So tonight we had the angel Azmaveth help Daniel understand his dream, and then get called away to help John understand his vision on Patmos. Beginning next week, John will be our focus.
Daniel, of course, is alway pictured with lions, and John is often pictured with an eagle. To my knowledge there is no actual legend of John encountering an eagle, but ancient iconography made the identification as a way of saying how his Gospel (especially in its opening) "soared" above the others, and focuses on the Divinity of Christ. I had thought for some time that as I had Daniel talking with his lion companions, I would have John talk with his friend the eagle. But I had no idea what they would say to each other.
Then it occurred to me: John has just written down his revelation, with divine instructions to send it to the seven churches of Asia minor. John is a prisoner stuck on an island. He's "gotta get a message" to some people, but it seems doubtful that as a prisoner and non-citizen he could rely on the Roman postal system. So, if he encountered a creature that could fly, why not try to persuade it to deliver your letter?
The eagle, of course, would be offended by such a suggestion. Serving as a "common carrier pidgeon" would be beneath a bird of such regal elegance. So John will have to convince the bird that the message of his letter is lofty enough to require an eagle to carry it (hence giving us a reason for him to recount his vision to the eagle). To fill out this cast, I think I will write a part for a Roman Guard whose suspicions are aroused by the prisoner's time spent with the bird.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Stations of the Cross
A college friend, who went with me and several other students to Israel in January 1990, recently requested that I send him some photos of our trip. This prompted me to go back through my album and scan several of them, uploading them to Facebook and making them available not only to him but to all of my other friends online. Because our computer is slow, that took a good deal of time, stretching out over several weeks, and carried me into Holy Week. Though of course my experience of being in the Holy Land has affected my experience of reading scripture ever since, I don't often pull out these photos and dwell on them at the same time I am reading and meditating on particular passages. This was particularly meaningful to me as I was directing a dramatic reading of the Passion Narrative for our Palm Sunday service, and reading parts for a Maundy Thursday seder service and a Good Friday Stations of the Cross service.I am glad that my first experience of the Stations of the Cross was at the actual sites in Jersualem where these events (some scriptural and others simply traditional) took place. Of course, a lot has changed in two thousand years, some of the events may have never happened or likely happened elsewhere (according to the best archaeological evidence today), and what sites are most likely to b
e authentic have ancient churches built over them so that what happened on that spot (if it happened on that spot) looked very different than it does today. Still, the idea of participating in something with millennia of pilgrims living and dead, trying to be faithful to what they believe to be following in Christ's footsteps from the place of his condemnation to the place of his burial, has a lot to commend it, and though I did it as part of a study tour rather than a pilgrimage ("Catholics do pilgrimages; Protestants do study tours"), having been there brings the experience alive to me in a way I can't otherwise imagine.One of the things that stands out in my memory is the fact that there is (or at least was) a "Fourth Station T-Shirt Shop." I did not go in so I cannot testify as to what they sold there (and how sacriligeous or religious-kitschy it might have been), but the fact of the store's existence and name is a reminder of the struggle between God and Mammon, the sellers of livestock and moneychangers whom Jesus chased out of the temple, and of the thirty pieces of silver Judas collected for agreeing to betray his Lord. The movie version of Jesus Christ Superstar, with its rows of shopkeepers who have turned the temple into a tourist trap really hits the nail on the head here. Yes it's awful how salesmen today are preying on pilgrims, but they were doing it in Jesus' day as well, and so it somehow makes the experience all that more authentic.
Another cl
ear memory of walking the Via Dolorosa with our group was the fact that when we reached the Seventh Station (which alledgedly marks the spot where Jesus fell a second time, one of those things not specifically mentioned in scripture), the site had recently been vandalized and the smell of teargas was still strong in the area. Again one's immediate feelings are "How awful! How inappropriate!", but when one thinks back to the fact that Jerusalem has been a religious and political hotspot since at least the time of Jesus, when Samaritans and Jews constantly strove to desecrate each other's religious sites and Roman soldiers were always after Zealots and other troublemakers, it again reinforces the fact that nothing is new under the sun, and that if we want to truly walk in the way of Jesus, these are the kinds of things we should expect to encounter.The last several stations are actually on or in the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Although "Gordon's Calvary" is much more what one would expect to see when visiting Jesus' tomb, there is no question among archaeologists as to which site is more likely to be authentic.
Much in the church feels overwrought and distracting. But the rock under glass which is purported to be Golgotha seemed convincing to me, and the stillness of being in the actual Sepulchre (once one gets past the fact that all the rock from around the cave has been cleared away to make the church, once one makes it through the line and is out of sight of the crowds and the gold and everything else) is rather moving. The empty tomb is truly empty, and you can sense the disorientation of the women and disciples who ran here. Something is missing, something is not how we expected it to be. The pilgrimage ends in emptiness, but that emptiness is the heart of the 
Good News. "He is not here, He is risen! ALLELUIA!"
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Babylon Wrap-Up
I can't believe how quickly the weeks are passing by this spring! Of course, "spring" seem like a misnomer as the temperatures have fallen and snow has been coming down most of the day. "A little bit of winter hid and came out in the spring," as my daughter described it (and thus began a poem the entire family contributed to this morning). That was a lovely start to the day, but nothing much seem to function as it should from that point on, and I was racing to get another scipt done before this evening's meeting.
We made it to Daniel 6, where we explained how Daniel got into the lion's den in the first place, and then got him out. So it's goodbye to the "denizens" and off to dreamland and from there to Patmos, where we switch dreamers and John the Revelator will take center stage. I have numerous problems to solve there, both in ideas and execution, but before I get to that, let me wrap up a few things from the Babylon segment.
We've had three different kings in the past three weeks, all performed by a very talented fourth grader named Beth. She had done Nebuchadnezzar in earlier episodes, and she helped to develop him into a very childish character. Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar's grandson, is known primarily for giving the big party at which God's hand appeared and wrote words of judgement on the wall. I played that up and developed him as a brain-dead party dude, egged on by a couple of "Bill and Ted" type buddies. Then tonight we had Darius the Mede, who was more pompous and self-important, egged on by a couple of his presidents (Jackson and Johnson) to pass the law forbidding prayer to any other than the king during "Darius the Mede Month." The last two weeks the flashback characters were handled as puppets in a separate acting space, rather than the live actors, and the children were involved as puppeteers.
When I first developed the lions, I thought Lenny and Leonora would be more important, with Lex remaining a gruff presence mostly offstage. As it turned out, Lex was the most important and the central story arc ended up being how he came to like and respect Daniel (whom he originally thought of as a forbidden delicacy he was determined to find some way of eating). Quite unexpectedly as I wrote, Daniel began using the stories of bad kings he had known to teach Lex how to be a better king, and he assured the lion that some day he would return to the wild and to his dominion (as Nebuchadnezzar did after his seven years of living like an wild animal). Thanks to a heavy sewing session last night, I was able to get Lex's mouth opened and working in time for tonight's opener, the ol' lion-tamer-putting-his-head-in-the-lion's-mouth routine. Nora startled him and reflexively he swallowed, then gagged on the prophet, which put Daniel in danger and called out the angel Azmaveth, but when they were finally able to explain they told everybody that Daniel was simply looking into a cavity which was giving Lex trouble. That display of trust, and the final farewell when Daniel left the den tonight proved what good friends they had become.
We made it to Daniel 6, where we explained how Daniel got into the lion's den in the first place, and then got him out. So it's goodbye to the "denizens" and off to dreamland and from there to Patmos, where we switch dreamers and John the Revelator will take center stage. I have numerous problems to solve there, both in ideas and execution, but before I get to that, let me wrap up a few things from the Babylon segment.
We've had three different kings in the past three weeks, all performed by a very talented fourth grader named Beth. She had done Nebuchadnezzar in earlier episodes, and she helped to develop him into a very childish character. Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar's grandson, is known primarily for giving the big party at which God's hand appeared and wrote words of judgement on the wall. I played that up and developed him as a brain-dead party dude, egged on by a couple of "Bill and Ted" type buddies. Then tonight we had Darius the Mede, who was more pompous and self-important, egged on by a couple of his presidents (Jackson and Johnson) to pass the law forbidding prayer to any other than the king during "Darius the Mede Month." The last two weeks the flashback characters were handled as puppets in a separate acting space, rather than the live actors, and the children were involved as puppeteers.
When I first developed the lions, I thought Lenny and Leonora would be more important, with Lex remaining a gruff presence mostly offstage. As it turned out, Lex was the most important and the central story arc ended up being how he came to like and respect Daniel (whom he originally thought of as a forbidden delicacy he was determined to find some way of eating). Quite unexpectedly as I wrote, Daniel began using the stories of bad kings he had known to teach Lex how to be a better king, and he assured the lion that some day he would return to the wild and to his dominion (as Nebuchadnezzar did after his seven years of living like an wild animal). Thanks to a heavy sewing session last night, I was able to get Lex's mouth opened and working in time for tonight's opener, the ol' lion-tamer-putting-his-head-in-the-lion's-mouth routine. Nora startled him and reflexively he swallowed, then gagged on the prophet, which put Daniel in danger and called out the angel Azmaveth, but when they were finally able to explain they told everybody that Daniel was simply looking into a cavity which was giving Lex trouble. That display of trust, and the final farewell when Daniel left the den tonight proved what good friends they had become.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Flashbacks to Babylon
Our third week in the Lion's Den was a bit chaotic... My wife, who seemed to be getting over the flu on Monday had a major relapse on Tuesday, and I had to step up to the plate and handle the homeschooling for the day. Consequently, I didn't get my planned day off to prepare for that night, and around 3:00 decided to go with a "music video" approach to telling the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. I had sort of hoped to do something musically (probably the title song from *Cool in the Furnace*), but what was at hand was a song on a Beginner's Bible CD Pam loaned me. It was fun, involving sound effects of a fire chief and dispatcher's radio communication, had a female vocalist and a bit of a rap. It required purchasing four additional puppets to play those roles (the fireman actually was designed to be a fireman, but the dispatcher was a queen I redressed in a discarded policeman's uniform, the rapper was a knight that I converted to an angel (left the shiny suit on and just replaced the helmet with a starry halo and added wings) and the lead singer was a cowgirl (no reason she should be, but no reason she shouldn't, so I left her as she was, for lack of a better idea). We ad-libbed a short intro with Daniel and the Lions, in which Daniel explained he was away on a diplomatic mission when this happened, and so he had to read the story from official transcripts (he rolled out a scroll which was the cue for the music). Interestingly enough, the Bible doesn't tell us WHERE Daniel was when his three friends were thrown into the furnace, but the rabbis came up with some VERY interesting possibilities in the Talmud (one of my favorites was that he was in the Valley of Dry Bones with Ezekiel, helping to raise the dead).
I of course couldn't see how any of this went down (the fire department and space for the singers were in front of the kitchen window we use for the Den, out of my view), but I'm told the kids were into it, and the puppets danced appropriately. The only major problem was my puppeteer for the angel Azmaveth, Daniel's guardian, went AWOL, and the fearless prophet of God had to run away in order to end the scene.
Also out of my view was the doorway we filled with red, orange and yellow streamers to serve as the fiery furnace. Four child volunteers and one of my adult leaders acted out the story as the puppets narrated in song. This followed a pattern established the week before, involving live actors (including some of the kids) in the flashback scenes. That week we had combined the leftover part of the first script (involving Daniel's refusal to eat the king's food) from chapter 1 with the story of Nebuchadnezzar's dream in chapter 2 for an extended flashback to his early days at court. Surprisingly I did not do much with the character of Nebuchadnezzar, but the young actress who took the role really played it up, turning him into a childish egocentric (giving me a good idea for how to develop the character for next week!). The standout in that week's script was Ashpenaz (who actually was a composite of the chief eunuch in chapter 1--I didn't bother explaining that--and Arioch the chief guard in chapter 2). I wrote him as annoying and annoyed, fearful and sarcastic, all at once. He couldn't understand why his young charges refused the finest food in the empire for the sake of a God who, if he cared anything for them, would not have allowed them to be conquered in the first place. He tried mocking them, reasoning with them, and eventually begging them, fearful that if they didn't do as they were told HE would lose his head. When they ended up being the most impressive new students, rewarded with high positions in the king's court, he had to admit maybe they knew what they were doing, and there "might be something to this God of yours after all!" As I tried to imagine this character, what came to me was a voice from one of the "Fractured Fairytales" in an old *Rocky and Bullwinkle* episode, the one in which Prince Charming is a crooked schemer who, instead of kissing Sleeping Beauty and waking her up, decides she's more interesting asleep, and turns her into a tourist attraction, building "Sleeping Beauty Land", charging admission, and making a fortune off of merchandise tie-ins. I don't know who the voice talent was, but he was very familiar and I'm sure had a lot of the work back in the day.
The challenge for the coming week is to write the script for King Nebuchadnezzar's "Beastly Time" (when he is humbled and eats grass like an ox), and to get the lions' mouths moving.
I of course couldn't see how any of this went down (the fire department and space for the singers were in front of the kitchen window we use for the Den, out of my view), but I'm told the kids were into it, and the puppets danced appropriately. The only major problem was my puppeteer for the angel Azmaveth, Daniel's guardian, went AWOL, and the fearless prophet of God had to run away in order to end the scene.
Also out of my view was the doorway we filled with red, orange and yellow streamers to serve as the fiery furnace. Four child volunteers and one of my adult leaders acted out the story as the puppets narrated in song. This followed a pattern established the week before, involving live actors (including some of the kids) in the flashback scenes. That week we had combined the leftover part of the first script (involving Daniel's refusal to eat the king's food) from chapter 1 with the story of Nebuchadnezzar's dream in chapter 2 for an extended flashback to his early days at court. Surprisingly I did not do much with the character of Nebuchadnezzar, but the young actress who took the role really played it up, turning him into a childish egocentric (giving me a good idea for how to develop the character for next week!). The standout in that week's script was Ashpenaz (who actually was a composite of the chief eunuch in chapter 1--I didn't bother explaining that--and Arioch the chief guard in chapter 2). I wrote him as annoying and annoyed, fearful and sarcastic, all at once. He couldn't understand why his young charges refused the finest food in the empire for the sake of a God who, if he cared anything for them, would not have allowed them to be conquered in the first place. He tried mocking them, reasoning with them, and eventually begging them, fearful that if they didn't do as they were told HE would lose his head. When they ended up being the most impressive new students, rewarded with high positions in the king's court, he had to admit maybe they knew what they were doing, and there "might be something to this God of yours after all!" As I tried to imagine this character, what came to me was a voice from one of the "Fractured Fairytales" in an old *Rocky and Bullwinkle* episode, the one in which Prince Charming is a crooked schemer who, instead of kissing Sleeping Beauty and waking her up, decides she's more interesting asleep, and turns her into a tourist attraction, building "Sleeping Beauty Land", charging admission, and making a fortune off of merchandise tie-ins. I don't know who the voice talent was, but he was very familiar and I'm sure had a lot of the work back in the day.
The challenge for the coming week is to write the script for King Nebuchadnezzar's "Beastly Time" (when he is humbled and eats grass like an ox), and to get the lions' mouths moving.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Denizens
Well, due to a 4-day mens' retreat (among other things) I was unable to get the puppets really ready for their debut, as I'd hoped; but we had a script, we had actors, and we had SOMETHING to help visualize the characters as we launched ourselves into the Lion's Den at KidzLife last Tuesday night...
Mr. Smith is not pretty. He's actually quite large and scary looking. He started out based on a caricature of Harrison Ford, but as I sewed him he got more and more wrinkled (of course, seeing the fourth installment of Indiana Jones, I'm not TOO far off the mark). He now has something of a Yoda-esque quality to him. But even as I created him (primarily to be "Pennsylvania Smith"), I had thought of letting him play a large archangel Michael in "The Legend of Slappy Hooper." So when I needed an angel to guard Daniel from the lions, it seemed a logical role for this puppet to play. I've given him the name of Azmaveth for this role, and explained his age and look by saying he's a Warrior angel who has been fighting evil for 3,000 years. He's all about action, and not terribly verbal, which fits in with the Indiana Jones/Pennyslvania Smith type of charater.
No one is quite sure who "Darius the Mede" was, but it seems that his reign in Babylon coincided with Cyrus I's reign over the Medo-Persian empire. That puts Daniel's time in the lion's den AFTER 70 years of him being in exile, which means he HAS to be 80 or older at this time. Thinking of likeable elderly people whose voices I could do, I ended up with a personality and style of speaking similar to Jimmy Stewart (dead now and forever young in many films, but I can recall him in several live appearances in the 60s and 70s, mostly on talk shows, at which point he was quite old). Originally I'd hoped to make both an old Daniel and younger Daniel (another reason for picking Stewart, in that I had a good idea of what he looked like at both ages), but I had to settle for buying a puppet, stripping him of his garb (in this case, a fireman's hat and coat), recostuming him in a simple tunic and putting white hair and beard on over his brown hair and moustache he came with. My wife informed me that his hair fell off shortly after the performance began last week, but I've had time this week to sew it in place, so FROM NOW ON, not a hair from his head shall be harmed...
At first, I thought we could get by with one lion, and I naturally pictured something large and ferocious, roaring with a wide-opened mouth (and from several classic cartoons of yesteryear, I pictured the angel slapping him with an "Ahhhhh, SHADDUP!"; at which point the big fierce cat becomes humorously meek). As I thought more about it, I realized that if I wanted a female character anywhere in this piece, it would have to be one of the lions. So I began to imagine a tough lioness named Leonora, as the primary "take charge" character in the den. Of course, the lion is the "king of beasts" and I didn't want to let go of my initial image, so Lexus Rex emerged as the big scary beast, who makes all the others do the work while he sits back and looks regal. I thought he could stand in for all the puffed-up self-important kings Daniel has to deal with in his flashbacks (as the most famous story about Daniel happened near the end of his life, I thought this would be the ideal setting from which to tell all of the earlier stories). Then Lenny appeared in my imagination as a comic foil, inspired partly by one of Scat Cat's band (in *The Aristocats*) and partly be Cheech Marin's voice work for Disney, as a hep cat beatnik/hippy who likes to take life easy and doesn't really go in for all this "king of the beasts" bit. He kind of likes Daniel, and is not so hip on Lex or other authority figures, and he acts in very undignified and unlionlike ways, partly in protest agains the pomposity and pretense of royalty which the other lions expect him to conform to. As Lenny and Leonora started dialoging, I began to see that their bickering, Lenny's attitude towards Lex and the Lion Code, and the fact that gets away with so much could best be explained if Lenny was Leonora's younger brother. This comes out clearest in the fact that, while everyone else refers to her as Leonora or "Nora", Lenny consistently calls here "Lena."
Though the lions' characters were well developed in the script, I didn't have time to do anything with their bodies before last Tuesday. I found a lion-headed rug which was the proper size for Lex, and picked up at a second-hand store a large stuffed Simba (the best I could do for a lioness) and another stuffed lion for Lenny (which I simply added orange sunglasses to, to help convey his character). I need to work in the coming weeks to turn these into actual puppets, hollowing them out, making them more flexible, and giving them movable mouths. It should be an interesting challeng, working from the outside in, rather than the inside out...
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Fasting: From What and For What
[Every once in awhile--maybe twice a year--I get to speak to the "big people" at church. This was the sermon I preached last night, posted for your enjoyment and edification.]
Ash Wednesday 2009
Isaiah 58:1-12
Psalm 103
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
An Irishman moved into a tiny hamlet in County Kerry, walked into the pub and ordered three beers. The bartender raised his eyebrows a wee bit, but (with reservation) served the man the three beers, which he took to a nearby table and quietly drank them all by himself.The next evening the man came to the pub and again ordered three beers and carried them to table by himself and proceeded to drink the three beers all by himself. For weeks, this man came into the pub regularly and when he did, he ordered 3 beers and took them to a table and drank the 3 beers all by himself.Soon the entire little hamlet of County Kerry was whispering about the "man who orders three beers."Finally, after many weeks, the bartender broached the subject on behalf of the village."I don't mean to be prying but folks around here are wonderin why your always order three beers and drink them alone?""Tis a wee bit odd I would be supposin" the man replied. "You see, I have two brothers, and one went to America and the other went to Australia. We promised each other that we would always order two extra beers, whenever we would partake, as a way of keeping up the family bond."The bartender and the entire hamlet of County Kerry were pleased with his answer and with the reverence for family and soon the "man who orders three beers" became somewhat of a local celebrity and source of pride to the hamlet.Then one evening the man came in and ordered only two beers. The bartender served them with a heavy heart. The Irishman took them to the table and drank the 2 beers all by himself. On the next visits to the pub, the "man who orders three beers," would only order two beers. And drink them all by himself. Word spread around the hamlet quickly. Prayers were offered for the soul of one of the brothers. The next day, the bartender said to the man, "Folks around here, me first of all, want to offer our condolences to you for the death of your brother, you know - only two beers."The man pondered for a moment then replied, " You'll be happy to hear that my two brothers are alive and well. It's just that I, meself, have decided to give up beer for Lent."
We have been conditioned to think of Lent as a time for giving up something—something we want—and living in a society which teaches us we should HAVE everything that we WANT makes this difficult. We are rocking the boat, going against the grain, choosing what is hard over what is easy. We are expected to fail, to fall short, to succumb to temptation. We are expected to be grumpy, to complain, and to take advantage of any loopholes we may devise (like the man who ordered three beers). And if by some superhuman effort we succeed in giving up something we want, we are to be admired, congratulated, and held up as a lofty example for others to worship and adore.
We are conditioned to think that we should never give up something without getting something in return. All of our political and economic dealings are explicitly handled in this fashion, and many of our less formal social interactions have this as a hidden agenda. We should never be short-changed; our objective is to come out ahead, and convince the other party that what we are giving up is of far greater worth than what we are getting in return (all the while secretly knowing that is NOT the case).
And so it is that we are conditioned to bargain with God. IF we decide to give up something for God, then we think—consciously or unconsciously—he will OWE us something. Whether we relegate it to heavenly blessings in the future, or expect to “name it and claim it” here on earth, there is a part of us that thinks that what we do for God—or especially what we REFRAIN from doing for the sake of God—has got to result in some blessing for US. Why else would we do it? Or NOT do it?
This is where Isaiah’s audience was. They assured themselves, they assured others, and they even assured God that they were people who were seeking the Lord daily, delighting to know his ways, praying for justice and drawing near to God. Most importantly, and probably most OBVIOUSLY, they were FASTING, and they wanted everyone to know. By Jesus’ day this was down to an art form, with all of the make-up and costumes of a stage play. People would look gloomy, disfigure their faces, and cover themselves with sackcloth and ashes. They might have even hired someone to blow a trumpet to call everyone’s attention to the fact, “Look at me, I’m FASTING!”
Whatever they were doing, it failed to get God’s attention, and they were TICKED! “Why have we fasted, and you see it not?” the people scream at God. “Why have we HUMBLED ourselves, and you take no notice? I mean, just LOOK at what we’ve given up! Didn’t you SEE the RESTRAINT I exercised there! That was quite a tasty meal I passed up! And the DESSERT! Aunt Suzy made her special cheesecake just for me, and I didn’t have ONE SLICE! And HUMBLE—humble pie, that’s all I had! Did you SEE how hard I worked on that clean-up day? That was certainly BENEATH someone of my birth and breeding, but I DID it! And that’s not even my GIFT! Man, it takes a REALLY HOLY MAN to do that kinda stuff! Yes SIR! I gotta be the holiest person I know! And HUMBLE too! So where’s my blessing, huh? Whatcha gonna do for me, now, after ALL I’ve done for YOU!”
[Shrill sound of a trumpet blast].
“Lift up your voice like a trumpet” God tells Isaiah. Trumpets in those days were not soothing jazz instruments, but something more like an air raid siren. The Pharisees may have have gathered little crowds with their trumpets, but God’s trumpets brought down the walls of Jericho, called the people to repentance in Joel’s day, and the seven trumpets of Revelation will end the world as we know it. God is trying to get our attention.
“Cry aloud, and do not hold back…Declare to my people their transgression, and to the house of Jacob their sins.” There is nothing we can do to make ourselves holy, to make ourselves acceptable, or to put God in our debt. The Creator of heaven and earth is not some puny pagan deity that can be made to do what we want by any kind of bargaining, cajoling, or use of sympathetic magic. That is the kind of religion the Israelites were supposed to put an end to when God brought them into the promised land. It is a false worship, a fasting that ends in fistfights, a piety of pride, a praise that tries to cover up oppression. This is not the worship, not the service, not the kind of fasting God wants.
What is it that God wants? Once he has the attention of these supposed worshippers, what does he tell them? Does he slap them down for their pride, remind them of their puniness like Job or give them pointers on how to purify their worship and offer better sacrifices. That might be what we would expect, but no. Instead, he directs their attention to their neighbors, the ones they are getting in fistfights with and oppressing. God tells them, “If you really want to please me, if you really want to know what kind of fasting gets my attention, then try putting your neighbor first. If you are really concerned about justice, don’t just pray about it, DO SOMETHING! Loose some yokes, forgive some debts, feed some hungry people, give what you have to those who need it.” And we say, “That’s not worship, that’s service! That’s not UP, that’s OUT! Let’s keep these things straight!” But they’re really all connected, because, God says in I John 4:20, “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
THEN, God says, “you shall call and the Lord will answer, you will cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ THEN shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as noonday. THEN the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places, you shall be like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.”
Already, I can hear the wheels turning. “Ok, so if I fast AND do service projects AT THE SAME TIME, THEN I will gain God’s favor for being a holy person, and win all the benefits and blessings that I want!” No. Although your neighbors will certainly appreciate it more, there is still no way we can EARN God’s favor. But fortunately we don’t have to; Jesus Christ has taken care of that. All our righteousness is like filthy rags, as Isaiah tells us elsewhere, but if we are in Jesus, Paul tells us, we have the righteousness of Christ.
So fasting is fine, giving up things for Lent is fine, but let us be careful of HOW and WHY we do whatever we do.
A bulrush bows before the breeze, NOT to prove what a good bulrush it is, or because it hopes to gain something from the breeze; it is simply submitting to a greater force. When John on Patmos heard someone speak to him in a voice like a trumpet, he fell at his feet as though dead. When the Alpha and Omega speaks to us, we have no choice but to listen, and he tells us our attitude should be one of those who say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.”
Ash Wednesday 2009
Isaiah 58:1-12
Psalm 103
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
An Irishman moved into a tiny hamlet in County Kerry, walked into the pub and ordered three beers. The bartender raised his eyebrows a wee bit, but (with reservation) served the man the three beers, which he took to a nearby table and quietly drank them all by himself.The next evening the man came to the pub and again ordered three beers and carried them to table by himself and proceeded to drink the three beers all by himself. For weeks, this man came into the pub regularly and when he did, he ordered 3 beers and took them to a table and drank the 3 beers all by himself.Soon the entire little hamlet of County Kerry was whispering about the "man who orders three beers."Finally, after many weeks, the bartender broached the subject on behalf of the village."I don't mean to be prying but folks around here are wonderin why your always order three beers and drink them alone?""Tis a wee bit odd I would be supposin" the man replied. "You see, I have two brothers, and one went to America and the other went to Australia. We promised each other that we would always order two extra beers, whenever we would partake, as a way of keeping up the family bond."The bartender and the entire hamlet of County Kerry were pleased with his answer and with the reverence for family and soon the "man who orders three beers" became somewhat of a local celebrity and source of pride to the hamlet.Then one evening the man came in and ordered only two beers. The bartender served them with a heavy heart. The Irishman took them to the table and drank the 2 beers all by himself. On the next visits to the pub, the "man who orders three beers," would only order two beers. And drink them all by himself. Word spread around the hamlet quickly. Prayers were offered for the soul of one of the brothers. The next day, the bartender said to the man, "Folks around here, me first of all, want to offer our condolences to you for the death of your brother, you know - only two beers."The man pondered for a moment then replied, " You'll be happy to hear that my two brothers are alive and well. It's just that I, meself, have decided to give up beer for Lent."
We have been conditioned to think of Lent as a time for giving up something—something we want—and living in a society which teaches us we should HAVE everything that we WANT makes this difficult. We are rocking the boat, going against the grain, choosing what is hard over what is easy. We are expected to fail, to fall short, to succumb to temptation. We are expected to be grumpy, to complain, and to take advantage of any loopholes we may devise (like the man who ordered three beers). And if by some superhuman effort we succeed in giving up something we want, we are to be admired, congratulated, and held up as a lofty example for others to worship and adore.
We are conditioned to think that we should never give up something without getting something in return. All of our political and economic dealings are explicitly handled in this fashion, and many of our less formal social interactions have this as a hidden agenda. We should never be short-changed; our objective is to come out ahead, and convince the other party that what we are giving up is of far greater worth than what we are getting in return (all the while secretly knowing that is NOT the case).
And so it is that we are conditioned to bargain with God. IF we decide to give up something for God, then we think—consciously or unconsciously—he will OWE us something. Whether we relegate it to heavenly blessings in the future, or expect to “name it and claim it” here on earth, there is a part of us that thinks that what we do for God—or especially what we REFRAIN from doing for the sake of God—has got to result in some blessing for US. Why else would we do it? Or NOT do it?
This is where Isaiah’s audience was. They assured themselves, they assured others, and they even assured God that they were people who were seeking the Lord daily, delighting to know his ways, praying for justice and drawing near to God. Most importantly, and probably most OBVIOUSLY, they were FASTING, and they wanted everyone to know. By Jesus’ day this was down to an art form, with all of the make-up and costumes of a stage play. People would look gloomy, disfigure their faces, and cover themselves with sackcloth and ashes. They might have even hired someone to blow a trumpet to call everyone’s attention to the fact, “Look at me, I’m FASTING!”
Whatever they were doing, it failed to get God’s attention, and they were TICKED! “Why have we fasted, and you see it not?” the people scream at God. “Why have we HUMBLED ourselves, and you take no notice? I mean, just LOOK at what we’ve given up! Didn’t you SEE the RESTRAINT I exercised there! That was quite a tasty meal I passed up! And the DESSERT! Aunt Suzy made her special cheesecake just for me, and I didn’t have ONE SLICE! And HUMBLE—humble pie, that’s all I had! Did you SEE how hard I worked on that clean-up day? That was certainly BENEATH someone of my birth and breeding, but I DID it! And that’s not even my GIFT! Man, it takes a REALLY HOLY MAN to do that kinda stuff! Yes SIR! I gotta be the holiest person I know! And HUMBLE too! So where’s my blessing, huh? Whatcha gonna do for me, now, after ALL I’ve done for YOU!”
[Shrill sound of a trumpet blast].
“Lift up your voice like a trumpet” God tells Isaiah. Trumpets in those days were not soothing jazz instruments, but something more like an air raid siren. The Pharisees may have have gathered little crowds with their trumpets, but God’s trumpets brought down the walls of Jericho, called the people to repentance in Joel’s day, and the seven trumpets of Revelation will end the world as we know it. God is trying to get our attention.
“Cry aloud, and do not hold back…Declare to my people their transgression, and to the house of Jacob their sins.” There is nothing we can do to make ourselves holy, to make ourselves acceptable, or to put God in our debt. The Creator of heaven and earth is not some puny pagan deity that can be made to do what we want by any kind of bargaining, cajoling, or use of sympathetic magic. That is the kind of religion the Israelites were supposed to put an end to when God brought them into the promised land. It is a false worship, a fasting that ends in fistfights, a piety of pride, a praise that tries to cover up oppression. This is not the worship, not the service, not the kind of fasting God wants.
What is it that God wants? Once he has the attention of these supposed worshippers, what does he tell them? Does he slap them down for their pride, remind them of their puniness like Job or give them pointers on how to purify their worship and offer better sacrifices. That might be what we would expect, but no. Instead, he directs their attention to their neighbors, the ones they are getting in fistfights with and oppressing. God tells them, “If you really want to please me, if you really want to know what kind of fasting gets my attention, then try putting your neighbor first. If you are really concerned about justice, don’t just pray about it, DO SOMETHING! Loose some yokes, forgive some debts, feed some hungry people, give what you have to those who need it.” And we say, “That’s not worship, that’s service! That’s not UP, that’s OUT! Let’s keep these things straight!” But they’re really all connected, because, God says in I John 4:20, “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
THEN, God says, “you shall call and the Lord will answer, you will cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ THEN shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as noonday. THEN the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places, you shall be like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.”
Already, I can hear the wheels turning. “Ok, so if I fast AND do service projects AT THE SAME TIME, THEN I will gain God’s favor for being a holy person, and win all the benefits and blessings that I want!” No. Although your neighbors will certainly appreciate it more, there is still no way we can EARN God’s favor. But fortunately we don’t have to; Jesus Christ has taken care of that. All our righteousness is like filthy rags, as Isaiah tells us elsewhere, but if we are in Jesus, Paul tells us, we have the righteousness of Christ.
So fasting is fine, giving up things for Lent is fine, but let us be careful of HOW and WHY we do whatever we do.
A bulrush bows before the breeze, NOT to prove what a good bulrush it is, or because it hopes to gain something from the breeze; it is simply submitting to a greater force. When John on Patmos heard someone speak to him in a voice like a trumpet, he fell at his feet as though dead. When the Alpha and Omega speaks to us, we have no choice but to listen, and he tells us our attitude should be one of those who say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.”
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Beginning Again
Fortunately, it is easier to re-launch a blog than it is a rocket. Actually, growing up during the "race to the moon," I don't think there was such a word as "relaunch." If something was launched once back then, there was not much left after separation and orbit to "relaunch". I guess maybe the term came into use with the advent of the space shuttle...
"At any rate, I can tell I'm starting wrong. Let me begin again..."
For various reasons, once launched before Christmas, this blog went on a long hiatus, but I'm back, and hope to be posting at least weekly (and less weakly) in coming months. My apologies to the few readers who managed to find this.
The other new beginning I want to mention is that KidzLife started off again with a Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper. This was our third Spring to kick-off in this fashion, and everything seemed to really come together well. Thanks to all who provided food and served the meal, and special thanks to my team, especially Pam for leading music and Allie and Debby for doing the Exile story using Godly Play. I'm always impressed (and somewhat baffled) at how well those stories connect with the kids, but obviously God uses them. And I'm hoping we will use them more in our kids' programs and Sunday School.
Personally, I was pleased to see once again how well the Pancake Race went over. It's a simple thing, I know, but games are not my forte, and when I come up with one that the kids like so much, it is very gratifying. (Jesse Marshall, who worked with me in an earlier stint as youth pastor, had a real gift in this area; he could say to the kids, "Ok, for the next ten minutes I want you all to jump up and down on your left foot" and the kids would swear it was the most fun they'd ever had. Most of my games I feel like the kids are merely indulging me.) In Olney, England, they've been running this race with housewives flipping pancakes every year since 1445, so we just re-enact it as a relay race. The past two years the kids have had so much fun that once they all went through the line once, they just kept going until we made them stop.
This week was mostly setting the scene for the semester, which will be dealing with Daniel. Next Tuesday we will start with puppets, though at this point it is not at all clear HOW! Prayers, please, for time, money and creativity...
"At any rate, I can tell I'm starting wrong. Let me begin again..."
For various reasons, once launched before Christmas, this blog went on a long hiatus, but I'm back, and hope to be posting at least weekly (and less weakly) in coming months. My apologies to the few readers who managed to find this.
The other new beginning I want to mention is that KidzLife started off again with a Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper. This was our third Spring to kick-off in this fashion, and everything seemed to really come together well. Thanks to all who provided food and served the meal, and special thanks to my team, especially Pam for leading music and Allie and Debby for doing the Exile story using Godly Play. I'm always impressed (and somewhat baffled) at how well those stories connect with the kids, but obviously God uses them. And I'm hoping we will use them more in our kids' programs and Sunday School.
Personally, I was pleased to see once again how well the Pancake Race went over. It's a simple thing, I know, but games are not my forte, and when I come up with one that the kids like so much, it is very gratifying. (Jesse Marshall, who worked with me in an earlier stint as youth pastor, had a real gift in this area; he could say to the kids, "Ok, for the next ten minutes I want you all to jump up and down on your left foot" and the kids would swear it was the most fun they'd ever had. Most of my games I feel like the kids are merely indulging me.) In Olney, England, they've been running this race with housewives flipping pancakes every year since 1445, so we just re-enact it as a relay race. The past two years the kids have had so much fun that once they all went through the line once, they just kept going until we made them stop.
This week was mostly setting the scene for the semester, which will be dealing with Daniel. Next Tuesday we will start with puppets, though at this point it is not at all clear HOW! Prayers, please, for time, money and creativity...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)